Things I love: the Real Meal Revolution {and giveaway}

January and February have come and gone and, if you’re anything like me, any New Year’s resolutions along with them.

For the Beard and I, eating more healthily was one of our resolutions. Obviously. It’s a resolution every year, but especially for this year, 2019 being the Year of Me. To that end we’ve made a conscious effort to spend more time in the kitchen, and not just to make coffee. We’ve given up takeaways for the YEAR, we’ve started meal planning and we use UCOOK once every couple of weeks when we’re too tired to think.

This is why I’m a big fan of the Real Meal Revolution books. They make you seem like you are being righteous enough and sticking to your diet, but they’re yummy enough that you can trick your brain into thinking you’re not.

The Low Carb Cooking book is their latest offering of recipes, cooking lessons and dietary advice. The recipes are easy to follow and the ingredients easy to find. The photos are magnificent and make it all the more difficult to decide what to make.

This is not my first experience with the Real Meal Revolution. The Beard and I banted way back when when they introduced it to South Africa and it was effective if a little hard for us to keep up – I don’t think we ever really adopted the lifestyle fully enough.

To be honest, I think we’re better at moderation than cutting something out completely. Let’s just say Dry July just doesn’t work in our household.

These days we try to eat low carby as much as possible but allow ourselves a carb or 3 (LOAVES OF BREAD) when we want.

But it’s nice to have a recipe book like this around for healthy inspiration.

One of their books which has been a lifesaver in our kitchen is Raising Superheroes. From feeding your baby in utero until their teens, this book has over 300 pages of info and recipes. All these recipes are
anti-sugar, anti-refined carb, pro-real food and totally and utterly delicious.

And the photos! So gorgeous.

I know making food for families is not rocket science, but I really need the help when it comes to meal planning and food inspiration. Just because I generally suck at that side of parenting.

I used Raising Superheroes all the time when J was being introduced to solids. Now that we’re in the same place again with Little S, I’m using it again. (I’m not going to lie, Little S has a lot more Squish’s than J did, but at least using this book makes me feel better about that.)

I love books like these because you can basically turn to any page and you should find something you feel like cooking, and you know it won’t be too fancy or complicated.

Think chicken, spinach and cheddar cannonballs (aka meatballs), tomato and sweet potato soup, and pumpkin nut flapjacks

If you’re really keen on trying out banting properly, there is a new Beginner Banting Online Course which you can join to help you adapt to this new lifestyle. Or if you just need someone to kick you up the bum every time you think of ordering Butler’s.

You’re given a personalised plan to follow, tools to track and monitor your eating, loads of recipes to use, and you can even choose to have a Banting Coach, which is probably exactly what I need.

But if you don’t want to go the whole hog just yet, maybe you should check out the recipe books first and see if you’re convinced. For one lucky person, I’m giving away SIGNED copies of Raising Superheroes and Low Carb Cooking – signed by the man himself Jonno Proudfoot.

A book for the parents and a book for the kidlets – the whole family sorted!

All you have to do is pop over to Instagram and enter there.

Rules: Competition open to SA residents only; competition closes midday on Friday 22 March 2019.

Featured image: Real Meal Revolution